دهخدا در قلعه‌ی دزک – شعری از مجید نفیسی

Dehkhoda in Dezak Castle  

        By Majid Naficy

It still snows in Dezak.*

The nomads have returned to the warm plains

And the snow has covered their footprints.

I go to bring a candle

Before darkness falls like a dagger.

One can fight against the invaders in Tangestan.

One can go to forests with Kuchek Khan in Gilan.

One can bring out a newspaper in Tehran again.

Yet, all I want is a book,

Or rather a dictionary.

I will open it like the vast bed of the earth

And like a gazelle

Run from one word to another

On its fragrant leaves.

The words will pull me behind

And I will find my way from neighboring words

To the far and further ones.

This is all I need

The world is all mine

And Jahangir is with me.

When I become tired

I will close the book

And go to sleep on its big shoulder.

        January 13, 2007

*- Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, satirist, lexicographer and journalist, published Sur Esrafil Newspaper during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution with the collaberation of Jahangir-Khan Shirazi . With the advent of First World War he went to Bakhtiari nomads’ land and spent a winter in the castle of Dezak, near Shahrkord, where the idea of writing an encyclopedic Persian dictionary captured his soul. During the Revolution, his friend Jahangir was choked to death by the executioners of Mohammad-Ali Shah in Baghshah, Tehran, and Dehkhoda wrote a poem in his memory with this famous line: “Remember, remember the dead candle”. I visited Dezak Castle in 1968.